Number One: Finishing the season is nonnegotiable

There a million and one ideas out there about how to finish the football season but one thing that is not up for negotiation is all the league games need to be played.

However long that takes. Scottish football has been getting caught up in what would happen if the season was brought to a premature end, be it making the campaign null and void or declaring the likes of Celtic and Dundee United as champions.

We’ve not got anywhere near to that yet and look at the divisions opening up already, so that’s one reason to not want to go there.

But the biggest reason is pure sporting integrity.

I’ve yet to see or hear anybody tell me why a season that hasn’t started should be prioritised over one that is nearly finished.

Arbroath could get relegated this season but I would still rather that happened and we finished the season off properly than we wiped the slate clean and started again.

And don’t think that Celtic and United players wouldn’t want the same.

Celtic will win the league by a bigger points’ margin than they already have and United will be champions in our league.

It would be an injustice on those players who have earned those titles to see an asterisk next to their achievement.

I know these are unprecedented times but football will survive, no matter how long we have to wait.

The damage would be a lot worse if the public had to swallow an unfinished season.

People would turn off from the game.

Small clubs need all the help they can get to make it through the barren weeks and months but we also need to get ourselves ready to sell our game when it does come back.

It has not even been a week and already this break has been torture for me and I’m sure plenty of others are in the same boat!

There will be such enthusiasm to play and watch football when we come back, I’m sure that attendances will go up.

Let’s help each other out as a sport in Scotland but never lose sight of the fact that we need to do the right thing.

That means completing what we’ve begun. Morally, there is no other option.

Players will stick to programmes

As far as the players are concerned, we’re not yet at the stage where we’re treating this shutdown as a sort of close-season.

It might be highly unlikely, but you have to keep in the back of your mind that the season could be restarting in a few weeks.

All the boys have got fitness programmes to stick to and I’ve absolutely no doubts that they will.

There will be a natural recharging of bodies and injuries healing up, with not playing games.

And even if this lay-off does last longer, there aren’t any professionals who let themselves go in this day and age.

The one thing for sure is that the ball will come back out at some point.

And, with it being a short race to the finish line for 2019/20, we have to be ready to make a fast start.

Football will survive, no matter how long we have to wait

Celtic skipper Scott Brown will want to complete the fixtures.